Shortcuts

Subscribe.
[Feeds & Readers]

Make us your home page!
Authors, sign in!

Notices & Policies

All of the Everyday Citizen authors are delighted you are here. We all hope that you come back often, leave us comments, and become an active part of our community. Welcome!

Each of the authors here retain their own copyrights for their written works. Our authors also welcome and encourage readers to copy, reference or quote from the content of their blog postings, provided that the content reprints include obvious author or website attribution and/or links to their original postings, in accordance with this website's Creative Commons License.

We are also honored that such phenomenal authors choose to keep their blogs at Everyday Citizen. All of our contributing authors are credentialed by invitation only from the editor/publisher of EverydayCitizen.com. If you are visiting and are interested in writing here, please feel free to let us know.

For complete site policies, including privacy, see our Frequently Asked Questions.

This site is designed, maintained, and owned by its editor and publisher, Pam Pohly.

EverydayCitizen.com, The Everyday Citizen, everydaycitizens.com, and Everyday Citizen are trademarked names.

Copyright, 2007-2008, All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified, first by each the respective authors of each of their own individual blogs, and then by the editor and publisher for any otherwise unreserved and all other content.

Front Page » Beth Boisvert's Blog

Beth Boisvert

Beth BoisvertBeth Boisvert grew up in southern New Hampshire, and recently lived in New York City where she graduated with her M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary. She now lives in New England, where she enjoys stacking firewood, raking leaves, and learning to avoid poison ivy.

Beth was recently asked in a class to state her greatest passion. She has many passions, but decided that the greatest one is to not conform to expectations. Beth uses that passion to help break down stereotypes. She loves when she tells people her intended career and they say, "You don't look like a minister!"

Beth wants to change people's views about what a minister looks like, what a Christian look like, and what an eco-feminist, quilting bibliophile looks like (see picture above!).

Beth has a multitude of other passions, including understanding the relationship between sexuality and spirituality. She cares deeply about education, and about children, especially those "forgotten" in the foster care and orphanage systems. Beth stays busy with her studies, her many interests and her writing. In addition to blogging here at Everyday Citizen, she also has keeps a great personal blog. Beth welcomes your feedback at bethboisvert at gmail dot com. We're so happy that she takes the time to share her thoughts with us here. You can browse through and read entries from Beth's complete historical blog archives here.


July 29, 2008

South LA City Council Deserves Three Cheers

By Beth Boisvert on July 29, 2008

I ran across this AP article today and felt like giving the South Los Angeles City Council a round of applause. In short, they have placed a moratorium on the opening of new fast food restaurants in the area, hoping to give healthier restaurants and grocery stores an opportunity to step in.

Bravo! Studies have long shown that those living in economically poorer neighborhoods are much more obese than their middle or upper class counterparts. At first, this wouldn't make sense. If you have no money, you don't eat as much, so you'd be thinner, right? Well, in developing countries that may certainly be the case, but here in these United States, we've got these things called dollar menus, in which one can buy a whole meal for less than a tank of gas. Well, that's great for the poor, right? Cheap food is easier on the budget, no wonder poor neighborhoods are filled with fast food restaurants.

Oh, wait, one problem: the foods on those menus (and the majority of the foods these restaurants serve) aren't healthy. They're high in calories, high in fat and cholesterol, and low in nutritional value.

Opponents of the moratorium argue with this blanket conception.

Read More ...

June 27, 2008

Not in My Backyard

By Beth Boisvert on June 27, 2008

I recently read a short blurb in my hometown newspaper about a local Superfund (hazardous waste) site that finally was going to be cleaned up. On one hand, I rejoiced. No longer would the neighbors of this dangerous place have to live with contaminants in the air, water, and soil. Health problems would most likely be diminished. It took residents many years to get through the bureaucracy to reach this goal, and for that I applaud them.

Then, something else caught my eye. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided that the easiest and most cost-effective way to "fix" the site is to do offsite disposal. Now, when I looked on the EPA's Superfund website, it seems that the end result is a chemical landfill.

Hold the phone: We're taking it from one community's backyard, and putting it in another's? Yup, basically. Now, there are all these technical phrases in the document's about recovery of these sites I didn't understand, having to do with chemical levels and parts per millimeter or something or other, that seemed to say they take into consideration how toxically saturated the soil is to decide how close to a residential area it can go.

See, that's the thing about stuff -- hazardous or otherwise.

Read More ...

May 9, 2008

Why I Won't Tone Down My Crazy Feminism Stuff

By Beth Boisvert on May 9, 2008

Not too long ago, I was describing part of my thesis project to a colleague after a conversation about the search and call process. “It’s a prayer shawl,” I told him, “with the names and images of the women I consider to be my saints, the cloud of witnesses that surround me.”

“Whoa,” he replied. “You’re going to have to tone down that crazy feminist stuff when you meet with search committees.”

Now, truth be told, I don’t consider myself a “crazy” feminist. I am a feminist, yes, in that I feel that men and women are equal and deserve to be treated as such. Perhaps I am a strong feminist, in that I believe that men are not the “default” humans, with women being an afterthought. I believe influential women should be celebrated in the same way influential men have been for millennia. I also believe that women have the same access to God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit that men do, and the same ability to share that with a parish community. If that makes me a “crazy feminist,” then I will proudly claim that title.

So, in honor of that, here are my top ten reasons I won’t tone down my crazy feminism...

Read More ...

April 12, 2008

Name or Un-Named, We Remember

By Beth Boisvert on April 12, 2008

I can't seem to stop thinking about her, this woman whose name I don't know.

Last Friday, while leaving a friend's apartment, I was stopped in my tracks by an unmistakable sound: that of someone being hit.

A man yelled in Spanish, each phrase punctuated by that horrible sound. I heard her voice yell back once. His reply was that sound. As I came to myself enough to move away down the stairs, not wanting to be discovered just standing there listening, I heard him yell some more, "Que te dijo? Que te dijo?!" What did I tell you, what did I tell you.

I didn't know what to do.

Read More ...

April 11, 2008

Nothing New Under the Sun

By Beth Boisvert on April 11, 2008

So says the writer of Ecclesiastes. And I'm inclined to agree. I'm starting to see how much what shapes our world now is not so different from what has shaped other times and societies. All areas of our lives hold "memories" of what has come before.

Read More ...

You can browse through and read entries from Beth's complete historical blog archives here. Do you want to browse blogs by other authors? You might wish to go to our table of contents to find articles under specific topics or headings. You can also look for entries in our archives by a particular day, by a particular month and year. You can also return to our front page.


Browse the Blogs!